James Madison to James Robertson (March 27, 1831)

March 27, 1831.

The journals of the State Legislatures, with the journal and debates of the State Conventions, and the journal and other printed accounts of the proceedings of the Federal Convention of 1787, are, of course, the primary sources of information. Some sketches of what passed in that Convention have found their way to the public, particularly those of Judge Yates and of Mr. Luther Martin. But the Judge, though a highly respectable man, was a zealous partizan, and has committed gross errors in his desultory notes. He left the Convention also before it had reached the stages of its deliberations in which the character of the body and the views of individuals were sufficiently developed. Mr. Martin, who was also present but a part of the time, betrays, in his communication to the Legislature of Maryland, feelings which had a discolouring effect on his statements. As it has become known that I was at much pains to preserve an account of what passed in the Convention, I ought perhaps to observe, that I have thought it becoming, in several views, that a publication of it should be at least of a posthumous date.